Users in a shared access broadband network may be logically grouped based on the business type, policy, service agreement, and so on. These users may be spread over a large geographical area and they may access the shared bandwidth from their respective remote access points (e.g., terminals) to an aggregation point, such as a network gateway. An operator on that shared access broadband network may provide, for example, internet services to one or more groups of users that subscribe to bandwidth from the operator. Such a group of terminals may, for example, be an enterprise with terminals in multiple geographical locations, or a virtual network operator (VNO) that provides internet services to users in a large geographic area. A logical group of terminals may sometimes be referred to as a terminal group (TG).
On the outroute (i.e., the forward direction such as from the gateway to a remote terminal) of a satellite network, traffic from numerous sources may be multiplexed into a data stream that may be transmitted over the air interface. Due to various quality of service (QoS) requirements and customer classification criteria, the incoming traffic data may first be grouped into multiple IP and acceleration gateways before being multiplexed at a link layer gateway where the data stream to be sent over the air interface is formed. Consider, for example, a digital video broadcast satellite network such as, for example, a DVBS-2 based geosynchronous earth orbit satellite network. DVB-S2 is a digital television broadcast standard developed by the DVB project (an industry consortium), and ratified by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) envisioned for broadcasting services, interactive services including Internet access, and data content distribution. In such a network, the IP layer and link gateway may be referred to as the IP gateway (IPGW) and the satellite gateway (SGW), respectively. The data stream may be broadcast to remote network nodes such as Very Small Aperture Terminals (VSATs).
Existing methods for using the satellite spectrum and providing QoS services to different traffic classes are based upon the needs of individual terminals. Challenges may arise when terminals are logically grouped but still physically spread across part or all of the network.